Albums We Overrated (NR10)

Even No Ripcord writers get things wrong from time to time. As part of our tenth birthday review, we look back at three albums that we memorably overrated.

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TV on the Radio: Return to Cookie Mountain

I was going to write this piece about the New Pornographers since their supergroup status means they have it coming and, while I like them, they’re just not as good as most critics assert.  But then I realized that I actually never overrated them, even to myself, acknowledging their strengths (hooks, boundless energy), but also accepting their limitations (i.e. the boundless energy isn’t always matched by the material).  

So I knew that there was only one band and one album where I got a little swept up in the hype, and now find myself hitting the iPod’s skip function way too much for a 9 rated disc – TV on the Radio’s Return to Cookie Mountain.  

Maybe it turns out that I just don’t like their style of music as much as I thought I did. Generally, they make compelling, unique music.  But it sort of occurred to me when I was originally raving about it, and seems blindingly clear to me now, that this album is woefully frontloaded.  It cooks for the first half, but for this listener, a certain monotony starts to seep in as the melodic ideas dry up.  The sound remains somewhat exciting, but the songs tend to get weaker as the record runs out (Wash the Day Away is an exception).  And like so many albums of the CD era, it’s too damn long!  Honestly, every second a CD clocks in over the 35 minute mark should be subject to extensive internal band discussion and justification.  In this case, we could have easily lost the last four songs and the impact would have been greater. Release those on an EP for obsessives and everyone is happy.  I still believe in the album-as-document framework, and that means ditching the filler and putting out a product you can believe in start to finish.  I took a lot of flak for dissing Dear Science, but that was for completely different reasons.  This record still has plenty of great music on it, and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it.  But I’d also point interested listeners to the first EP and album for a more satisfying TVOTR experience. (Alan Shulman)

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Coldplay: Parachutes

If I still had a copy of the damn thing, I’d pin my embarrassingly gushing review of the Coldplay debut Parachutes to the office wall. Even the best critics get it wrong, of course; the history of music criticism is littered with contradictory statements and bad judgements. On this site I’ve grossly overrated a few albums (Loney Dear’s Loney Noir, the Ormondroyd debut) and unfairly panned others (The Liars’ first record, Hood’s Cold House) but this remains my greatest gaffe.

I call still recall my excitement as I listened to The Blue Room EP for the first time; if I’m honest, that early enthusiasm fuelled my reaction to the relatively sterile full-length that followed. Two Blue Room tracks reappeared on Parachutes – a neutered, radio-ready re-take of Don’t Panic and an intact version of High Speed. The rest of the album, co-produced with Ken Nelson (see also: Gomez, Badly Drawn Boy, Snow Patrol), takes fewer sonic risks than the Chris Allison produced EP, preferring a clean, uncluttered sound, which allows Martin’s voice – and his frequently banal lyrics – to take centre stage. Shiver was an impressive single, Trouble is a nice enough piano ballad (and a big favourite here in the UK, especially) and High Speed still shimmers, but there’s a lot of material here that sounds less than thrilling today (Spies, the turgid Everything’s Not Lost).

I know that Coldplay fans will accuse me of editing my opinion in light of the band’s popularity, but that is nonsense. In my book, a 10/10 album is one for ages, a timeless classic that will draw the listener back again and again, revealing new depths with each listen. I’m talking about records as inspirational as Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Loveless, and In The Aeroplane Over The Sea. I haven’t voluntarily listened to Parachutes since late 2000 and today it simply sounds like an inoffensive debut album by an ever so slightly pedestrian British band. I’m officially re-grading it as 6/10. (David Coleman)

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Hope Of The States: The Lost Riots  

Whenever I'm tempted to give anything a high score, be it on No Ripcord or elsewhere in life (this coffee is, without a doubt, a seven out of ten coffee), I'm always reticent to give out a maximum score. Now, I'm reticent. I wasn't always, but because of Hope Of The States, now I'm wary. 

What warrants ten out of ten? What does that tell anyone about an album? Awarding ten is equivalent to the NME's regular proclamations that bands are this week's saviours of rock'n'roll; it becomes as meaningless and outdated as swiftly as these identikit, skinny-jeaned pop bands. A score of nine means a record is fantastic, could hardly be better, should be listened to post-haste. So what does ten mean?  

Little, in the case of this album. For an album to deserve a ten, it still needs to be worth listening to all of five years later. It would need to be worth listening to, relevant and beautiful ten, twenty years down the line. It would need to throw up something new on each listen, and not feel like a chore to hear again. Sadly, The Lost Riots is just that: a chore, worn out; not a keeper.

That's not to say that The Lost Riots is a poor record, or that Hope Of The States were a poor band. At the time, I was (almost) justifiably carried away by the record's optimistic timbre, its swells of orchestration, by its glorious highlight, Black Dollar Bills; a song which remains one of the finest album centrepieces I can think of, and which first piqued my interest. It remains a soaring, tender, anthemic moment rising above an album chock-full of soaring, tender, anthemic moments, from its opening close-captured lyrics to its closing Godspeed!-styled gentle guitar wig-out. It's an ambitious record, reaching from the stars after the tragic suicide of the band's guitarist and occasionally grasping them.  

But: that's where it ends. Not a bad start, certainly, but no longevity; it's charms are exhausted now I've had enough of Black Dollar Bills, and tracks like The Black Amnesias or Nehemiah just sound misguided; the band now forgotten, the album's black sleeve is battered from being picked around, but not picked up. Dropped like a hot potato by Sony after a weak showing on their sophomore album, Hope Of The States failed to lodge in the national consciousness and were missed by few. It's a pity: for all its flaws (and there were many: over-grand ambition, concepts beyond their grasp, lack of focus, living in thrall to Mogwai, Radiohead, et al...) there was potential on the debut, a scope that could be reined in to make a focused, beautiful record. As witnessed in Sigur Rós' meteoric rise to ubiquity, or Elbow's Mercury win, there's no shortage of demand for epic, emotionally-charged rock anthems. But as with most major label gambles, Hope Of The States became victims of short, sharp hype, but no trousers in the promotional department.  

I never listen to the record now; in truth, I'm a little embarrassed to. It sits with M83's Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts (too pompous and trebly), Mogwai's Mr Beast (good, but just the same as every other Mogwai album), Nick Cave's Dig, Lazarus, Dig (insufficiently interesting, is all) and others which gather dust as mere reminders, cautions if you like, to be wary when doling out exuberant praise. It seems that records that don't really click at first tend to be the keepers: Kid A, Funeral etc., that tend to stick for the duration. Ah well: it's my prerogative, as they say. (Simon Briercliffe)

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